In the past, weatherstrips useful for providing a sealing arrangement between the window glass panel of a vehicle's front door and the rear quarter window glass panel or rear door glass panel had a center sash cemented to the front end portion of a rear quarter window glass panel. The weatherstrip had a resilient strip fitted in the center sash and included a lip portion sealingly engageable with the rear end portion of the front door window glass panel.
The weatherstrip having a center sash has the following disadvantages. The interval between the front door window glass panel and the rear quarter window glass panel generally becomes large, resulting in deteriorated appearance. The center sash also needs to have a considerable width, which gives rise to a defective sealing arrangement between the upper end portion of the rear quarter window glass panel and a body side weatherstrip (not shown) mounted on a vehicle body roof side portion. This is due primarily to the considerable difference in thickness between the part having a center sash and the part which is not provided with a center sash. Furthermore, since the center sash tends to be exposed, the center sash must be coated to give it a more refined appearance. Typically, an expensive material such as stainless steel or plated sheet steel is utilized for the coating, thus resulting in an expensive cost and increasing the overall cost of the weatherstrip assembly.
In an attempt to overcome these problems, weatherstrips comprising a resilient L-shaped base portion located at one end having a rigid core member embedded therein and a resilient lip portion located at the other end have been developed. The resilient lip portion typically is substantially J-shaped in cross-section and forms a sealing point with the front door window glass panel. However, with this design, a large dimension of seal overlap is required between the resilient lip and the glass panel to limit leakage. This creates a clearance problem when the glass is in a storage position or when the glass panel travels to the storage position.
In an effort to prevent the large dimension of seal overlap and thus the traveling and storage clearance problems, the resilient lip portion of the weatherstrip is reduced in length. This, however, creates a water leakage problem along the sealing point when water pressure is exerted against the weatherstrip.
There thus remains a need for an improved weatherstrip. It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to overcome the disadvantages of heretofore known weatherstrips, and in particular, to provide a weatherstrip which is fully effective against leakage even under extreme conditions, such as heavy rainfall.